


Sing for Me

by JungShooketh (ConkusConcussion)



Category: GOT7, 방탄소년단 | Bangtan Boys | BTS
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Mentions of Cancer, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-24
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-11-02 12:57:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20754065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConkusConcussion/pseuds/JungShooketh
Summary: Moving on is never easy. That's what they always tell you in the clinics and group therapy meetings. It's supposed to be nice to have others to talk to. When a loved one passes away, sometimes that's all you have: nice. Nothing is ever okay or good anymore. Just nice. Maybe that's why they think "moving on" is even possible. Maybe that's why they said it at his funeral.Maybe that's why he said it.





	Sing for Me

_ Moving on is never easy _ . That's what they always tell you in the clinics and group therapy meetings. It's supposed to be nice to have others to talk to. When a loved one passes away, sometimes that's all you have:  _ nice _ . Nothing is ever  _ okay _ or  _ good _ anymore. Just  _ nice _ . Maybe that's why they think "moving on" is even possible. Maybe that's why they said it at  _ his _ funeral.

Maybe that's why  _ he _ said it.

_ He _ had always been everything Jungkook needed. The word "nice" wasn't in Jungkook's vocabulary because everything was better with  _ him _ around. When Jungkook had broken his ankle on stage, who had been there for him?  _ He _ had.  _ H _ e sat with him every day, telling him jokes that in hindsight, weren't that funny. That's what love did, it blinded you. Looking back on how things used to be, on how Jungkook had seen the world  _ before _ , he was pleasantly blind… or maybe blind wasn't the right word.  _ Ignorance is bliss _ . Maybe he was just blissfully ignorant to all the bad parts in life. Maybe that's why the jokes seemed funny, even when they weren't.

Maybe that's why he didn't notice the spots on  _ his _ skin; through the eyes of ignorance, they were just freckles. It wasn't until the pain set in that they realized they weren't just freckles.

The skin had gotten dry and flaky, nothing that lotion couldn't fix, right? _His_ skin had always been flawless, and as an idol, it was kept that way. _He_ added another lotion to _his_ skincare routine, but it didn't seem to help much.

About one month later, they realized that it was much more serious than they had thought. The group had to take a sudden break, with no warning to the ARMYs beforehand. None of them did VLives, Jungkook made sure of that. If  _ he _ couldn't be in them, why should anyone else? Of course, they could've showed  _ his _ face to ARMYs. The swollen, bleeding welts on  _ his _ face probably would've scared them more than anything though.

It was in  _ his _ hospital room, at approximately 8:31 in the morning, that they discovered a fact that would forever mark the worst moment in any of their lives.

" _ I'm sorry to tell you this, Sir, but you have tested positive for Type 4 skin cancer. I'll be honest with you, it's developing faster than anything we've seen before." _

A bitter part of Jungkook wanted to laugh, even now, when he thought back to that morning. Of course  _ he _ had to be the trendsetter, even in his death.  _ He _ couldn't die in a normal way, from old age, or at least later on I'm his life. No,  _ he _ had to go out with a bang. The doctors gave  _ him _ 4 months to live. They said they had never seen anything like it.  _ He _ was quiet, heartbreakingly quiet, at first. It was like all of the life had been sucked out of the room, as if the very universe itself was feeling  _ his _ pain. Suddenly, though, the air settled.  _ He _ looked up at Jungkook and sent him  _ his _ wide grin that had always made Jungkook's heart sing before. Now, it just broke a little more.

When the ARMYs found out, their album sales tripled. BTS set new records and attained a level of fame that even The Beatles hadn't achieved. Jungkook didn't care about the money or fame. All he cared about was  _ him _ . He had someone bring him his clothes (he can't even remember who now) and he slept in  _ his _ room every night. He didn't care about the money either, and donated almost everything he had to cancer research charities. Jungkook was furious when he found out.

_ "How do you expect to pay for all of your medical expenses then?" _ He had shouted.

_ "Well, you'll pay for them won't you?" _

And that was how he proposed, at 2 a.m, after Jungkook had just seen a news article on _his_ charitable donations. They couldn't get married in South Korea, gay marriage still wasn't legal there, but _he_ didn't care. The last flight _he_ ever took was to Hawaii, where the two of the got married while looking out the window towards the ocean. They had the hospital bring in a chaplain. It was a small service, only BTS and their families attended. Jungkook refused to let _him_ change _his_ name, and instead took _his_ as his own. His initials really had become JK afterall.

_ "Jungkook Jeon, do you take this man to be your lawfully wedded husband?" _

_ "I do." _

_ "And in return, do you take him to be your lawfully wedded husband as well?" _

_ "I do." _

_He_ had never been great at English, but on that day, Jungkook had never heard someone speak it so beautifully in his life.

Compared to the quaintness of  _ his _ wedding,  _ his _ funeral was elaborate. There were people from all over the world tuning in on their TVs to watch as they cried their hearts out over  _ his _ ashes. 

It was the only true, free concert they had ever done, at least televised. _He_ had demanded that they sing for _him_. _He_ was convinced that no matter where _he_ was, or how many lifetimes away they were, that _he_ would always be able to hear their voices. _He_ even made sure that Jungkook sang for _him_ in _his_ final moments. Jungkook hoped _he_ could hear him, because he sang until his voice went raw and throat bled. He only stopped so that he would be able to sing again at _his _funeral. Jungkook sang most of _his_ parts, but there were some he couldn't bring himself to sing. They had done a ballad rendition of DNA, and it was one of the quietest songs they had ever performed. The video of _him_ singing to an injured Jungkook played during the parts where Jungkook's voice wouldn't work right on it own.

" _ Moving on is never easy _ ," Namjoon had said in his eulogy, " _ And Taehyung will never leave our hearts, or our memories. However, he would've wanted us to move on. He would've wanted the world to keep singing, even if he couldn't sing with it anymore." _

Jungkook never stopped singing after the funeral. BTS no longer performed songs together, at least not regularly. They did meet up once a year though, to perform their annual free, televised concert:  _ The Taehyung Memorial Performance _ . Jungkook became a solo artist, performing songs almost always about Taehyung. His happy songs? Memories of Taehyung. His love songs? Memories of Taehyung.

His sad songs? Memories without Taehyung.

Taehyung had always loved his voice, he had even said that it was the "best in Korea". Maybe Taehyung had been a little blind, a little ignorant, too. Jungkook couldn't fault him, he had thought the same about Taehyung.

In recent years (almost ten since Taehyung's passing) Jungkook had earned more fame than any solo artist in Korea's history. It didn't matter much though. Jungkook had used his money to buy their dorm. He had all the money in the world, but he rarely used any of it except to pay his bills… And to establish his own organization:  _ The Kim Taehyung Foundation for Rural Children and Cancer Patients,  _ otherwise known as the  _ RCCP _ . Through it, he used their money (it was  _ theirs _ , he was Kim Jungkook after all) to help children and rural families to afford their hospital bills. Taehyung had been a small-town boy once.

These days, the only person keeping him company was none other than Kim Yugyeom. Of course, the rest of BTS were still like family, but they had their own schedules to attend to. Besides, it was difficult for them to all gather together without remembering who wasn't there with them.

He and Yugyeom weren't romantic with each other, but they were something more than platonic. After Bambam's death ( _ Beat to death in the streets, a "hate crime" they said. How could someone possibly hate love? _ ) Yugyeom became a lot like Jungkook. When the therapy couldn't help, they helped each other. They were close, but they'd never be like Jungkook and Taehyung had been.

  
  


There was no such thing as "moving on",' at least not to Kim Jungkook as he stared in the bathroom mirror of his home, a bottle of sleeping pills in his hand. He shakily placed the bottle on bathroom counter, next to the hand soap that Yugyeom had bought while in America.

  
  


There was just…  _ moving _ .

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if I'm bad at writing angst, it's not really my forte. If you want a longer, fluffier story, you can check out my other fic: Clearing the Slate.
> 
> Shameless self promo ;)
> 
> Anyway, please tell me what you thought! Comment below or join our KPop discord server at https://discord.gg/uAfFkZk


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